5e Swordmage: A Wizard (?) subclass, Pls PEACH or pitch in

[BerzerkerUnit]

I realize Hexblade covers a lot of the 4e archetype, but I'm a little tired of Hexblade and warlock in general being a dumping ground for concepts. I'm doing something maybe a lot different inspired by Symphony of the Night's Sword Familiar.


Swordmage (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AlZvdmeok861XTtJOBSH9mYtqSZ2wJ5T/view?usp=sharing)
Let the elves keep their bladesong. Most weapons worth swinging are too heavy anyway, I'll let magic do the heavy lifting.

Bonus Proficiencies
At 2nd level after selecting this tradition you gain proficiency in Light Armor and one weapon of your choice.

Sword Familiar
Also at 2nd level you learn Find Familiar if you don't know it already. When you cast the spell your familiar can take the form or be bound to a weapon with which you are proficient. In this form it functions as a Flying Sword with the following changes: Its Hit Points are equal to 4 x your levels in this class, its bonus to hit equals your spell attack bonus, and its damage equals its weapon dice + your Intelligence modifier. The damage type is based on the weapon. If the weapon has the versatile property, it uses the larger of the dice.

If your Sword Familiar it's residing in its pocket dimension you may summon it as part of an attack when you take the attack action.

When you take the attack action you can give up one of your attacks to have the Sword Familiar attack. Additionally, if you cast a spell such as Booming Blade that grants you a melee attack, you can have the Sword Familiar make the attack. If your Sword Familiar is reduced to 0 hit points it is destroyed unless the Familiar Spirit was bound to a magic weapon in which case the weapon falls to the ground as an object and the Find Familiar ritual must be performed again.

While the feature is called Sword Familiar and the subclass is called Swordmage, any weapon with which you are proficient can be used.

Dancing Blade
Beginning at 6th level you learn to channel your arcane energies into your Sword Familiar to sunder your foes. When you make an attack on your turn you can expend a spell slot of 1st level or higher to have your sword familiar make a number of attacks on its next turn equal to the level of the slot expended. It can direct all of these attacks at the same target or spread them out using its movement. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.

Defensive Maneuvers
At 10th level and beyond you can have your Sword Familiar maintain a defensive posture, hovering over your head or circling your body. In this state it provides a +2 bonus to your armor class while you are not wearing a shield.

Dance Partner
At 14th level the magic of your Dancing Blade can draw a partner into a deadly tango. When you use your Dancing Blade feature you can loose another melee weapon you are wielding or have created with a spell to become its partner, moving into your Sword Familiar's space until the beginning of your next turn. On the Sword Familiar's turn it will make the same number of attacks at the same targets. You can use this feature once and regain its use after a long rest.

[supercereal]

I like the idea, I would suggest to streamline the subclass a bit and to tone it down in a few places.


Bonus Proficiencies
At 2nd level after selecting this tradition you gain proficiency in Light Armor and one weapon of your choice.

Nothing strange here, I would change one weapon into one type of one-handed melee weapon.


Sword Familiar
Also at 2nd level you learn the Find Familiar spell if you don't know it already. When you cast the spell, you can choose one of the normal forms for your familiar or the form of Flying Weapon. In this form your familiar has the same statistic as a Flying Sword with the following changes: it gains a bonus to its attack and damage rolls equal to your proficiency bonus and the damage type can be either slashing, piercing or bludgeoning. When you take the Attack action, you can forgo one of your own attacks to allow your familiar to use its reaction to make one attack of its own. Additionally, you can cast these cantrips through your familiar if you know them, as if they had a range of touch: Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade and Sword Burst.

I heavily edited this part. I think that most of the buff to the familiar were unnecessary, and that the part about the weapon type and damage dice was too convoluted.


Dancing Blade
Beginning at 6th level you learn to channel your arcane energies into your Sword Familiar to sunder your foes. When you make an attack on your turn you can expend a spell slot of 1st level or higher to have your sword familiar make a number of attacks on its next turn equal to the level of the slot expended. It can direct all of these attacks at the same target or spread them out using its movement. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all uses after a long rest.

Yeah no :smallbiggrin: way too op. Just replace this privilage with the one from Bladesinger "Extra Attack: Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. Moreover, you can cast one of your cantrips in place of one of those attacks."This way you can make two attack with your attack action and you can still synergize with your familiar ability to cast Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade or Sword Burst.


Defensive Maneuvers
At 10th level and beyond you can have your Sword Familiar maintain a defensive posture, hovering over your head or circling your body. In this state it provides a +2 bonus to your armor class while you are not wearing a shield.

It's ok but a little confusing, just change the last part to "While within 5-feet from you, your familiar provides a +2 bonus to your armor class while you are not wearing a shield." for clarity


Dance Partner
At 14th level the magic of your Dancing Blade can draw a partner into a deadly tango. When you use your Dancing Blade feature you can loose another melee weapon you are wielding or have created with a spell to become its partner, moving into your Sword Familiar's space until the beginning of your next turn. On the Sword Familiar's turn it will make the same number of attacks at the same targets. You can use this feature once and regain its use after a long rest.

Clearly this feature needs to be changed if we remove Dancing Blade (and I strongly think we should). My proposal is to change it into this "Dance Partner: At 14th level you learn the Mordenkainen’s Sword spell if you don't know it already and you can cast it once without expending a spell slot. You regain the use of this feature after a long rest."

[quinron]

I think, aince the subclass is entirely based on the flying sword, it may be better to just change it from a familiar to a construct with slits own ritual to create, a la the revised ranger's companion summoning. If you do that, I think it would work better for a different class - maybe bard, since you've got the dancing theme in there. You'd add the cantrips to the new classic's spell options if you did so and they didn't have access to them.

Either way, supercereal's right - Dancing Blade is too strong. I don't think I'd add Extra Attack, though - since you're focusing on the sword, I'd just make it let the sword attack twice when you use your action to attack, and I think that'd bring Dance Partner into balance as well. I might even reduce the latter to once per short rest.

[Catullus64]

Since use of the Sword Familiar feature is limited to weapons with which you are proficient, I think that the 1 Weapon Proficiency is overly restrictive. A single-classed Swordmage will have a grand total of 3 melee weapon proficiencies, not counting racials.

The ability to attach the spell to an existing weapon implies that you want the feature to be compatible with weapon treasure. In that case, why be so restrictive on which weapons are actually useable?

I would suggest either upping the number of proficiencies (maybe all simple melee weapons + 1 martial melee weapon), or allowing the Wizard to swap his or her weapon proficiency on a Long Rest.

Also, a ribbon feature at 2nd level would be nice. Maybe this one:

Dazzling Steel: When you choose this tradition at 2nd level, you learn a routine of blinding flourishes that display your expert bladesmanship. You must spend at least 1 minute performing this routine, during which it requires your Concentration, as if concentrating on a spell. When this minute is up, choose a number of creatures equal to your Intelligence modifier that can see you perform. These creatures must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw versus your spell save DC, or be Charmed by you for 1 hour. While charmed in this way, these creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks.

A question about the Sword Familiar's attacks: When you give up your attacks to have the Sword Familiar attack, does the Sword familiar attack with its action, or separately? That is, can it attack with your action, and then use its own action on its own turn to take the actions normally allowed to a familiar?

[supercereal]

I think, aince the subclass is entirely based on the flying sword, it may be better to just change it from a familiar to a construct with slits own ritual to create, a la the revised ranger's companion summoning

Agree, this is also a valuable path for the subclass. In this case I would create a new creature from scratch starting from the flying sword but changing some of the more troubling features (namely its high AC) to be more in line with other companions (e.g. the ranger beastmaster beast companion). The battlesmith arteficier Steel Defender could be a good place to start

[BerzerkerUnit]

Thanks so much for your feedback!

Won’t be swapping for bard, Blade Dance makes the blade move faster and sounds more poetic, but it’s not art by default.

Definitely won’t be cloning any element of Bladesinger, a primary inspiration to do this was to do something different.

I’ll be bullet pointing the familiar benefits to tighten up the language. Given the modifications to HP (like ranger companion) and abysmal saves, I’m not worried about high AC. It’s the focal point of the subclass and it will almost always die in a breath weapon or fireball during the mid to late game. Fortunately it’s cheap to replace.

Sounds like dancing blade hit a sweet spot for balance since it was viewed as underpowered on another forum. The critique over their compared multiple attacks equal to slot level to the output of a scorching ray or potential from fireball etc. I think it definitely compares favorably to a smite, but since it’s not pure nova since it occurs on a different turn and has more finite uses, I think it’s fine.

I think there’s a misconception that those attacks might somehow benefit from GWM or other fighting styles etc. they can’t.

Level 10 feature should have referenced “when the familiar shares your space” and I want to add an element where you can sacrifice the bonus for advantage on a save and if you succeed neither you nor the familiar take any damage.

[Nifft]

The main thing I remember about the Swordmage was its defender ability teleporting you to face-stab an enemy who had the audacity to attack your ally.

That, and at-will powers cantrips like Booming Blade, which have become generally available.

IMHO you might want to restrict those cantrips to this (sub)class.

[Catullus64]

Sounds like dancing blade hit a sweet spot for balance since it was viewed as underpowered on another forum.

I don't think that's how that works... the other forum could just be wrong. Or we could be. Our contrasting opinions don't mathematically average out to a balanced feature!

(Incidentally I think the feature in question is fine.)

[quinron]

Maybe "too strong" isn't the right way to look at Dancing Blade; I think it mostly just steps on the fighter's toes if a wizard can make more attacks per turn than they can. I'd at least put a slot level cap on it - that's fairly common when expending slots for non-spellcasting.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Maybe "too strong" isn't the right way to look at Dancing Blade; I think it mostly just steps on the fighter's toes if a wizard can make more attacks per turn than they can. I'd at least put a slot level cap on it - that's fairly common when expending slots for non-spellcasting.

Notably the Wizard can’t make more attacks. The blade can on its turn roughly match an action surging fighter provided the Wizard feeds it one of their highest level spell slots. And they can do this a finite number of times per day.

[quinron]

Notably the Wizard can’t make more attacks. The blade can on its turn roughly match an action surging fighter provided the Wizard feeds it one of their highest level spell slots. And they can do this a finite number of times per day.

The first sentence feels like a quibble; if the wizard is using one of their class features to make half a dozen weapon attacks, then the wizard is functionally making half a dozen weapon attacks.

And it's true that the wizard can do this a finite number of times per day, but it's still roughly as many or more than the number of times per day the fighter can do that same thing. Assuming 2 short rests (as I think is the assumed standard? somebody correct me if I'm wrong), a 6th-level fighter gets to Action Surge for 4 attacks on their turn 3 times per day; that's them burning their most valuable offensive resources. A 6th-level Swordmage can use Dancing Blade 3 times and has 3 3rd-level spells; if they burn these most valuable offensive resources on Dancing Blade, they can make 4 attacks on their turn 3 times per day, but they can also recover a 3rd-level spell on a short rest for an extra Dancing Blade.

Fighters get their 2nd Extra Attack at level 11 (3/day, 6 attacks) and get their 2nd Action Surge per short rest at 17th (6/day, 6 attacks). Just like at level 6, the 11th-level Swordmage can burn through their top-level spells to keep pace with the fighter; by level 17, the wizard can outdo the fighter in both total attacks in a single round and total number of rounds with 6+ attacks without having to burn their highest-level spells.

[BerzerkerUnit]

The first sentence feels like a quibble; if the wizard is using one of their class features to make half a dozen weapon attacks, then the wizard is functionally making half a dozen weapon attacks.

And it's true that the wizard can do this a finite number of times per day, but it's still roughly as many or more than the number of times per day the fighter can do that same thing. Assuming 2 short rests (as I think is the assumed standard? somebody correct me if I'm wrong), a 6th-level fighter gets to Action Surge for 4 attacks on their turn 3 times per day; that's them burning their most valuable offensive resources. A 6th-level Swordmage can use Dancing Blade 3 times and has 3 3rd-level spells; if they burn these most valuable offensive resources on Dancing Blade, they can make 4 attacks on their turn 3 times per day, but they can also recover a 3rd-level spell on a short rest for an extra Dancing Blade.

Fighters get their 2nd Extra Attack at level 11 (3/day, 6 attacks) and get their 2nd Action Surge per short rest at 17th (6/day, 6 attacks). Just like at level 6, the 11th-level Swordmage can burn through their top-level spells to keep pace with the fighter; by level 17, the wizard can outdo the fighter in both total attacks in a single round and total number of rounds with 6+ attacks without having to burn their highest-level spells.

And they would, assuming they’re using identical weapons, still be outclassed by a fighter bc the familiar cannot benefit from feats or fighting styles or subclass features. And it’s understood at that point that the Wizard has more effective and versatile options for similarly leveled slots at every level. So why would you do this? Bc under vet specific circumstances that you can set up with other spells (Darkness spell, paralyzed enemy, etc) it can approach the fighter’s level of effectiveness.

Due to daily resource expenditure, risk of being shut down by making the familiar, with its mediocre hp and terrible saves, a target, the need to coordinate across 2 separate turns (I address this last one in the next update) I can’t help but feel the balance is there when looked at in a full context rather than hanging one’s hat on a “no one can make more attacks in a round than fighters” ceiling that the game already doesn’t adhere to.

I’ll admit, the 14th level feature does go nuclear, but at the cost of a similarly leveled slot and its a 1/day.

[Anymage]

{Scrubbed}

[BerzerkerUnit]

Leaving aside balance questions, what's the point? You don't want to play a hexblade to get your gish on? You have swords bards, bladesinger wizards, and eldritch knights for guys who want to mix magic and swordplay together. Your whole subclass is thematically matched by a guy with a dancing sword, and if enemies know how to interrupt your dance partner turn you just lost your subclass for the rest of the fight.

{Scrubbed}

I think the very act of creative effort is evidence that none of the alternatives you’ve presented here scratch the particular itch that inspired this.

I dislike the Bard spell list, the Hexblade could probably get all of this with new invocations for chainpact, but it’s kind of limited based on spell list. Further, Hexblade is a sword guy or a couple levels to stack the absurd volume of features granted at level 1 to something else (often Wizard). As a result it gets old. I’ve written maybe 15 warlock patrons. You can find a few on DMsguild. Genie from 3-4 years ago, Heavencrasher, Beast Patron, Mean Green Mother from Outerspace, and more along with dozens of new Invocations. I’m on record elsewhere stating in no uncertain terms I think warlock is the pinnacle of 5e design methodology, meaning it’s the most versatile chassis. See my Beheld class in the most recent class design competition and the Summoner workshop thread I posted recently. Both use some form of pact magic, mystic arcanum, etc. Warlock is my favorite class and in all likelihood, if this makes it through a few rounds of playtest I will be turning pieces into Chainpact/Bladepact invocations. But that’s still not going to replace the concept I have here, of someone that enchants a weapon to fight for them at times in place of casting or to supplement casting.

Also Note: Bladesinger Wizards can meet exactly the same question you’ve asked here. Why isn’t Bladesinger an Eldritch Knight with Performance trained? Bc they wanted a unique mechanic but the melee ability of the singer is straight trash after level 9. So what was the point?

Here’s one: thematically matching isn’t the same as mechanically matching. Here’s another: there’s reflavoring to taste and then there’s creating absurd narrative plot holes that disturb suspension of disbelief, so new mechanics are created to effect the desired outcomes in game.

I’ve opted to reply only as an answer for others that might have had the same question but the perspective on the forum space we’re in not to ask. What you’ve done here with this post is such an irritating violation of the entire point of this forum I have to say I’d appreciate it if you focused your attention elsewhere.